I check on my blog stats more or less regularly. It’s interesting to see which entries are getting read, what links people are clicking, and also what brought folks to my blog. Today when I looked into the search engine terms I was saddened. Not surprised exactly, I suppose. But definitely not pleased by what I saw.

Somebody had performed a search using this combination of words: “Timez Attack crack“.

Somebody was looking to get a free copy of the wonderful math game I wrote about not too long ago, and somehow they landed on my blog in so doing.

Software pirating is a fact of life, and given the way some companies function I can’t say I am usually bothered by it. There are a good many issues with copyright, DRM and so on that I would like to see changed so that both the creators and the end user benefit more & big business imposes fewer (unreasonable) restrictions on us all.

This just isn’t one of those instances. Timez Attack has a free demo version, and it’s available for nothing more than giving the company your email address. What’s more, the only difference between the demo and the full, pay version is that there are different scenarios that are available in the latter. The demo version teaches multiplication from 2-12, exactly the same as the full version does. So why would you need a crack, a patch or a key generator? The only answer that I can come up with is that some people are just not satisfied enough with the free version.

Look I don’t know what this company’s other games are like, but I do know that I respect the fact that they made a fully functional demo available free and with no “try and buy it” scheme where the program locks up after so many days - or hours. I also know that through their affiliate program, they are making a share of the profits available to ordinary folks. And I can attest to the fact that they do pay out. They’ve even offered for people to save on the price of the game just for telling their friends about it. Really, how many high-end games can you get with these benefits?

So why let greed get in the way of a good thing? I, for one, would love to see these folks come up with a similar game that teaches addition. Or maybe have an upgrade that uses the same program to teach division once multiplication is mastered. Or maybe they’ll one day branch into something else like geography or grammar, or foreign language instruction? The popularity of Timez Attack might encourage them to make more games like it. That is, if people are going to buy legitimate copies of it instead of searching the internet for a torrent supplying a full copy and a key gen. If it ends up that most people’s copies are pirated, maybe they’ll just stick to whatever other kinds of games they were making.

I hope that those of you who have already tried the free version will seriously consider purchasing the full copy of Timez Attack. If money is tight, remember you can get that discount for telling your friends about it. If it still doesn’t fit into your budget, you aren’t going to suffer so terribly from the not having the extra scenarios. Wait till you have a little “rainy day” money to spend if you really want them. And in the meantime, you can tell your friends about the game. Who knows, maybe the price will get better. Or maybe you’ll end up getting a free demo for another cool game out of it.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Hubby & I sat down with the girls a few days ago to brainstorm what habits were more important to work on for the moment, and the cards and accompanying sheets got printed out. We set a few goals with the girls, and already Dojogirl is beginning to add things of her own. The Banana asked me this morning if we could add some special “Mama time” to her list of goals. So there’s no lack of motivation for good behaviour!

Yesterday was our first day of using the cards, and we did our tallies this morning after the girls got up. We’ve decided to do it this way so we can count getting to bed on time, as this is a trouble spot in our family. It didn’t make sense to have the girls getting up after they were tucked in, so we evaluate from breakfast time to breakfast time instead of breakfast to bedtime.

Both the girls lost two out of nine cards on our first day. Because the Banana had no points assigned to her cards, that wasn’t too bad for her. Dojogirl’s cards had numeric values attached to them, with the harder things worth more points. Unfortunately, it worked out that she lost two of the more weighty cards, and it caused her to lose 30 out of 100 points. In theory that’s a “failed” day - although it will average out once we look at several days in a row to evaluate a specific goal.

We didn’t put too much emphasis on the failure aspect, but did remind her that she’d hae to be on extra special behaviour to make up for it. Already, the tomato planting for tomorrow is in danger of being postponed….

It’s no miracle overnight cure, but it does seem to be working better than sticker charts ever did. The girls were much more helpful this morning than they’ve been in a while. We’re still working on attentiveness, however!

We may have to re-think the points assigned to Dojogirl’s habits, so as not to set her up for failure. Other than that, the system is working smoothly. Even better, it hardly takes any time at all to implement. That’s a big plus in my book.

Thanks to Debra for sharing her cards!

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!